All posts tagged health

While a number of researchers are modeling the spread of Ebola in West African countries besieged by the deadly virus, a group led by Alessandro Vespignani at Boston’s Northeastern University has used air traffic connections to explore how the disease might spread to the rest of the world.

The study, published last month in PLOS Currents: Outbreaks, simulated the number of passengers traveling daily from West Africa to other parts of the world in an effort to quantify the risk of the disease spreading Ebola internationally. Read More »

Sales on junk food are more tantalizing to low-income consumers than sales on healthy food, a new study suggests. Indeed, these consumers were about six times more likely to buy sweets or grain-based snacks when those items were on sale than when they weren’t. Whether low-calorie foods were on sale or not didn’t significantly affect the likelihood of purchase.

Indeed, these consumers were about six times more likely to buy sweets or grain-based snacks when those items were on sale than when they weren’t. Whether low-calorie foods were on sale or not didn’t significantly affect the likelihood of purchase. Read More »

More than 1,000 people have been infected, and it has the highest death count since the virus first appeared in two simultaneous outbreaks nearly four decades ago, according to World Health Organization data. Until this year, an Ebola outbreak hadn’t taken more than 200 lives since an outbreak in Uganda in the year 2000, according to the WHO. Read More »

Doctors have long known that uterine sarcomas, a dangerous type of cancer, can masquerade as fibroids, common benign uterine growths that can cause pain and bleeding for women in reproductive years. It has also been known that there is no reliable test to distinguish a cancerous mass from a benign fibroid.

People who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual are more likely to smoke and drink than those who identify as straight, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics on Tuesday. But they are more likely to exercise, too.

The 2013 survey was the first time the annual National Health Interview Survey included questions to measure sexual orientation. The survey collected information from 34,557 people over 18 in the U.S. It showed about 96.6% of adults in the United States identified themselves as straight, 1.6% identified as gay or lesbian and 0.7% identified as bisexual. A little over 1% didn’t respond to the sexual orientation question. Read More »

About The Numbers

The Wall Street Journal examines numbers in the news, business and politics. Some numbers are flat-out wrong or biased, while others are valid and help us make informed decisions. We tell the stories behind the stats in occasional updates on this blog.